Mark Shirtliff, Professor at the University of Maryland and a prominent member of the biofilm research community, died last Friday in a white-water rafting accident in Montana where he was for a month to teach a course on biofilms, an activity he has repeated every year for the past several years. Mark has been a guest-editor for Pathogens and Disease at the occasion of the first European congress on microbial biofilms: Eurobiofilms, which has resulted in an ongoing collaboration between FEMS Journals and the meeting. Our sincere condolences go out to Mark’s wife Birthe Kjellerup, his children, friends and family.